


teach me how to sing

by athousandwinds



Category: Sweeney Todd (2007)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-02
Updated: 2008-02-02
Packaged: 2017-10-15 00:07:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/154992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athousandwinds/pseuds/athousandwinds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?</p>
            </blockquote>





	teach me how to sing

Sometimes, after lovemaking, Anthony buries his face in her hair and says, I love you, I love you, I loved you even before I knew you.

How, Johanna wants to know, how did you love me?

I saw you, Anthony whispers into her skin, quiet like a prayer. You were so beautiful.

(At breakfast the day she saw him, the Judge stroked a finger over her hair and said, You are growing very lovely, Johanna. When she was sewing later, she picked up her shiny, sharp scissors and stared at them for a good, long while.)

Because Anthony smiles at her so hopefully, Johanna tells him, The first time I saw you, I wanted you so much. It is strictly truthful; Johanna is sick of lies. Even the whitest of white; even polite fictions. Anthony would be a captain now, but his superior officers think he has such a frigid wife.

The truth behind the truth is, Johanna doesn't say, I wanted to be you. To whistle and sling my world over my shoulder, to press alms into the palm of a beggar without a disapproving glare, to fly high up in the crow's nest. To swan through places I'd only read about, or to dance the hornpipe. To drink a glass of wine without fearing some apothecary's drug. To open my lark's cage door.

Why did you fall in love with me? Anthony asks eagerly. He strokes her hair, too, but under his callused hands she lies quiescent and sleepy.

You gave me dreams, she murmurs, and opens her eyes one last time to see his smile glow.


End file.
